We are only about a month into fall but all of the fall beauty releases have definitely come out swinging. One of the most anticipated fall launches of all time, was MAC’s Selena collection.
The Selena collection is not only special because it honors the great Selena, it’s also amazing because it is MAC’s first ever collection that was powered by the fans.
As someone who has loved MAC for many years and has loved Selena for an even longer amount of time, I, like many, signed the petition and was over the moon when MAC announced the collection would actually come to life. It meant so much to the Selena fan base that still stands strong 21 years later.
Once the collection was announced, fans eagerly awaited more information. After time, MAC began to release the first images of the collection along with the release date. I know I speak for many when I say I had the date marked in my calendar and obsessively stalked MAC on social media for the next glimpse of this game changing collaboration.
A year passed, and after all of the stalking and waiting, October 1st finally came, and it was finally time to get my hands on Selena MAC. I spent the whole night dancing to Selena songs the same way I did as a young girl; I was elated and at the same time a bit teary eyed because the collection meant so much to me.
While it is important to mention that nothing in this world can ever tarnish Selena’s legacy or the way the fans feel about her, there were several issues that took place during the launch of this collection that are important to mention. Trying to get something from the MAC Selena collection turned out to be a week long process that led to little sleep and was very difficult for many, myself included. It’s vital that we remember that Selena MAC is an incredible and positive thing; that being said, here is my retelling of what went down with the launch.
October 1st- Maccosmetics.com
I logged onto MAC’s website right at midnight, as I had done for several collection launches before. I had already set MAC’s website up as my home page and already entered in my information to the website so I would be ready. To my disdain, there was nothing. After spending hours just staring at the screen and refreshing constantly, it became clear to me that the collection would not be released any time soon. At the time, MAC’s social media team was telling people that the collection hadn’t been launched yet and they would notify fans via email when it was. I trusted that response, because any time MAC launched a collection, they always sent out the email that it was up- that’s how I was able to purchase things from collections like the Marilyn Monroe and Cinderella collaborations. So I let myself sleep.
When I awoke on Saturday morning, the same thing happened. Instead of enjoying my Saturday afternoon, I was stationed at the computer screen refreshing every second. After hours of waiting, I finally saw the Selena banner indicating that the collection was up. There was no email like MAC said there would be and I was taken by complete surprise. I tried to move as fast as I could to add things into my cart, but the website wasn’t loading. Finally, after a whole day of waiting and trying to add items to my cart without any success, I gave up and took a nap- MAC’s website crashed and so did my energy levels. When I woke up, I discovered that despite being glued to the computer screen all day, MAC just so happened to fix the website issues during the one time I took my eyes off the screen. The collection sold out.
MAC never announced the time in which the collection would be available to purchase, which I partially understand because they wanted to avoid their website crashing, but their website ended up crashing anyway. The only difference is, while the website was down for some, it was up for others who were able to purchase enough of the collection that it sold out. In my personal opinion, I feel as though MAC should have taken down the collection all together until they could get an IT team to resolve the issues so everyone would have had a fair chance of purchasing.
Despite feeling bummed out, I told myself not to worry, because even though it was sold out on MAC’s website, there was still the chance of purchasing something from several other vendors.
After taking some pressure from the fans, MAC put a banner up on their website that announced that they would be restocking the collection and they provided information about the various websites that would have the collection up for purchase on October 3rd.
October 3rd: Macy’s, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, Sak’s, Belk, and The Bay
Round 2 started out the same way. I had all of these websites pulled up on my computer and constantly refreshed. 12 am came, nothing happened. 1 am came, nothing happened. Since I had to work the next day I fell asleep and later found out Nordstrom released the collection at 2 am. I kicked myself a bit for not being able to stay awake just one more hour, then began to realize it wasn’t me who was in the wrong. It was these companies who underestimated the Latina community and who underestimated Selena’s fan base in general. When you are making your fans be stuck on the computer every waking hour because they want to purchase something, your system is flawed.
With all of the websites being sold out, (Bloomingdales even sold out in 30 seconds apparently. Some even say that Bloomingdales never actually released the collection online and the announcement that they sold out was a hoax), it seemed as though my last hope was Macy’s and Belk. At midnight, Belk had the Selena banner up, but any time I tried to click on the banner on Belk I was returned with an error message saying that the collection wasn’t available due to technical issues. At the same time, Macy’s appeared to be time releasing items from the collection but every time I tried to add something to my cart at Macy’s it sold out straight out of my cart or it would say the product wasn’t available.
#MACSelena on Twitter
After waiting several hours for Belk to release the collection online and not being able to purchase anything from Macy’s, I took to social media to see what was going on. I stumbled across the #MACSelena hashtag- here I saw others who were expressing their frustration, reaching out to Belk to see what the issue was, and I saw something that surprised me- fans encouraging other fans. Instead of people fighting with each other about who was able to buy what or trying to keep the launch dates hush out of greed, I saw people keeping others informed and saying things like “don’t lose hope, you’ll get something”.
It’s on this hashtag that I was finally able to purchase the items that I wanted from this collection on Macy’s and Belk thanks to fans announcing it on this hashtag. While Belk was insistent that they would notify everyone as soon as the collection went up, it was the fellow fans on twitter who did the announcing. Belk’s social media team spent the whole night tweeting out the same generic response to everyone’s inquiries while Selena fans were doing their investigations and grilling Belk about their mishandling of the entire situation.
The beautiful and uplifting people that I encountered on this hashtag are the epitome of what Selena was about- she would have been so proud to see the way everyone was interacting. The people posting on this situation helped make a stressful and time consuming situation better by offering some laughs, positive energy, and by helping everyone remember what this collection was all about.
MAC In Stores/What I learned from MAC Selena and what MAC could learn from us
Although I am not the same 5 year old girl dancing in shorts and a Disney training bra dancing to Bidi Bidi Bom Bom and several years have passed, I still feel the same way every time I hear a Selena song. I was watching the Voice when I saw a girl trying out singing “Como La Flor”, and I got teary eyed. Selena was a beautiful soul, and although her life was taken way before her time, she will always be with us. Although Selena transcends race, this is especially huge for the Latino community as this is the first time a Latina star has been awarded with her own MAC collection. This collection was also huge for fans because we not only made it happen, but we made sure everybody had a fighting chance to be a part of it. This is one of the strongest fan bases I’ve ever been apart of and we showed everyone we are still here and always will be.
On October 6th, MAC released the collection in stores. People camped out overnight at the local Dillard’s only for the collection to sell out. Several people stood in line for several hours only to leave empty handed. Yet somehow, despite several fans leaving without anything from the collection, several people were able to stock up enough to resell the items online for insane prices ranging from $100-700.
What MAC could learn from their mistakes in the launching of this collection is to keep more IT people handy, to limit the amount of items people can purchase to avoid reselling, and to never mess with Selena fans. We’ll be waiting for that restock, they better be ready for us this time.
Thanks for reading! I want to hear from you!
Did you have a similar experience with MAC Selena? Were you able to get any items from the collection, and if so, what were they? Comment below!
Check out the #MACSelena hashtag on Twitter and stay tuned for my next post on what I was actually able to purchase from the collection.
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